CN112602340B - Feedback method, device and system based on group - Google Patents

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to group-based feedback methods, apparatus and systems, and more particularly to multicast or multicast transmissions, and more particularly to beamformed or non-beamformed transmissions for use in communication systems such as 5G new air interfaces (NRs). The present disclosure relates to a base station (101), in particular a gndeb, for configuring a transmission group 801 comprising at least two user equipments, UEs, (810, 820), and transmitting a signal (802) to at least one of the UEs (810, 820) in the transmission group (801), wherein the signal (802) comprises information about feedback 803 to be received from at least one of the UEs (810, 820) in the transmission group (801), wherein the feedback (803) comprises information about the UEs (810, 820) in the transmission group 801.

Description

Group-based feedback method, device and system

technical field

The present disclosure relates to group-based feedback techniques, and more particularly to multicast or multicast transmissions, especially beamformed or non-beamformed transmissions for use in communication systems such as 5G New Radio (NR). The present disclosure relates to a base station, such as a gNodeB or eNodeB, and a user equipment (UE), such as a UE in a vehicle, initiating and/or applying such group-based feedback.

Background technique

Current radio interfaces (e.g., 3G-PPP, IEEE 802.11, etc.) employ direct feedback 111 from UEs 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 to base station 101 by using separate physical channels as shown on the left side of Fig. 1 , 121, 131, 141, 151. FIG. 1 shows a scenario where multiple UEs are located in respective vehicles, for example, the vehicles are connected to a base station 101, such as a gNodeB or eNodeB in a 5G communication network, for providing feedback information to the base station 101. This solution results in a large overhead in the uplink channel, especially if multiple UEs or vehicles are connected to the base station. In heavy traffic conditions, for example, during congestion or on a congested highway, the uplink channel to the base station 101 may be congested or even blocked.

Contents of the invention

The purpose of the present invention is to provide an effective technique for reducing traffic, especially signaling traffic in the above-mentioned scenarios. It is an object of the present invention to provide efficient techniques for group-based communication, especially for group-based feedback in NR communication systems.

This object is achieved by the features of the independent claims. Further implementation forms are indicated by the dependent claims, the description and the figures.

As described below, the basic idea of the present invention is to apply a group-based feedback scheme for providing feedback from UE to base station, especially for providing feedback for beamformed (or non-beamformed) transmissions. The feedback scheme specifies how UEs communicate with each other to exchange feedback information and how groups of UEs are formed. Disclosed group-based feedback schemes include the following:

1) Group-based beamforming feedback has the following aspects

• The UE group is configured by the gNB of a group of UEs.

● gNB explicit notification

• What feedback is provided (CQI, beam index, etc.). For example:

●Based on the differential CQI/RSRP/beam index of the leader UE and the correspondence between CSI and beam index; or the complete CQI/RSRP/beam index and the correspondence between CSI and beam index.

• A different CQI and RSRP number and corresponding beam index for each UE that the lead UE performs aggregation or concatenation.

• The form of the feedback should be: aggregated (eg differential/non-differential) or non-aggregated.

2) Select the reporting UE (UE reporting group feedback).

3) Collect feedback from the reporting UE.

4) Coordinate group feedback across multiple gNBs:

● Perform {CQI/

RSRP, beam index, group/UE information} transmission.

The above four components are all beneficial to realize group feedback in a robust and efficient manner.

The present disclosure is based on the following key concepts as described below:

A. A method of selecting reporting UEs and configuring groups of UEs to provide feedback for multicast/groupcast transmissions.

B. A method for providing feedback (e.g., CQI, RSRP, RSRQ, and beam index, whether aggregated or not) for group beamforming by one UE (selected/reporting UE, i.e., group leader), and aggregation across UEs method of feedback.

C. A method for inter-gNB coordination in case of inter-cell operation.

The disclosed group-based feedback scheme is particularly relevant to 5G NR standardization.

In order to describe the present invention in detail, the following terms, abbreviations and symbols will be used:

UE: User Equipment

BS: Base Station, gNodeB, eNodeB

NR: New Radio (standard) (New Radio (standard))

CQI: channel quality indicator (channel quality indicator)

RSRP: reference signal received power (reference signal received power)

RSRQ: Reference signal received quality

CSIRS: channel state information reference signal (channel state information reference signal)

CRI: CSIRS resource index (CSIRS resource index)

SS/PBCH: Synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel (synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel)

SSB: SS/PBCH block (SS/PBCH block)

BLER: block error rate (block error rate)

PRR: packet reception ratio

CSI: channel state information (channel state information)

SPS: semi-persistent scheduling

DL: Downlink (direction) (downlink(direction))

UL: Uplink (direction) (uplink(direction))

MCS: modulation and/or coding set (modulation and/or coding set)

PMI: precoding matrix indicator (precoding matrix indicator)

RI: rank indicator

BI: beam index

Xn: Interface between gNBs in NR standardization

According to a first aspect, the present invention relates to a base station, in particular a gNodeB, configured to configure a transmission group comprising at least two user equipment UEs and to send a signal to at least one UE in said transmission group, wherein,

The signal includes information about feedback to be received from at least one UE in the transmission group, wherein,

The feedback includes information about UEs in the transmission group.

Such a base station or gNB may configure UEs to provide group feedback from groups/clusters of UEs to the gNB for beamformed multicast and/or groupcast transmissions. A group can be defined as two or more UEs sending the same information. An advantage of such a base station is that feedback overhead, eg uplink (UL), is reduced by utilizing sidelinks within the group. Another advantage is flexibility in how to provide feedback from a group of UEs. A base station or gNB helps to improve the availability and reliability of UEs on poor links such as path loss due to congestion or fading.

The transmission group may also include UEs that are not within the coverage of the base station.

"A base station is configured to configure something" means that there is a hardware or software circuit or circuitry in the base station that enables the base station to do something, such as configure a UE or any other hardware, software or physical entity.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to configure the transmission group based on sidelink feedback of transmissions from a non-leader UE of the transmission group to a leader UE of the transmission group. The lead UE may be the UE reporting the feedback signal.

The advantage provided by such a base station is that the signaling of the uplink channel can be reduced using sidelink feedback.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to configure the transmission group based on information provided by at least one UE in the transmission group.

The advantage of such a base station lies in flexible information acquisition. Any member (UE) of the transmission group can provide information to the base station.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to select a leader UE of the transmission group and/or receive information about the leader UE from at least one UE in the transmission group.

The advantage of this base station is that it can flexibly allocate the leading UE. For example, the base station may select the lead UE, or the lead UE may be pre-assigned and the lead UE may be notified to the base station.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to select a lead UE based on the quality of the uplink connection of the lead UE to the base station.

The advantage of such a base station is that the lead UE will have the best uplink channel and be able to send the maximum amount of information to the base station via the uplink channel.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to select a leading UE based on at least one of the following options: a decision of the base station, especially a decision based on channel conditions to the UEs of the transmission group; a decision of the UEs of the transmission group Cooperation protocol; reuse of contextual information and/or existing principles, especially the principle that the UE of the first vehicle is the fleet use case of the lead UE.

This provides a high degree of flexibility.

Existing principles relate to use cases developed for UEs, especially for UEs arranged in groups. For example, in a convoy use case, the first vehicle is usually the lead UE, since it is the first UE exposed to a change in the environment, such as when approaching a tunnel. In a shared use case, different tasks are shared between UEs in a transmission group. In another use case, a specific UE can be used to measure uplink channel characteristics, and this specific UE can act as a lead UE. In another use case, the UE with the best uplink channel quality can be used as the lead UE. Existing principles may refer to principles at the application layer specifying fleet use cases or sharing use cases or other use cases.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to form a common beam covering the UEs of the transmission group and/or to form separate beams for at least two UEs in the transmission group.

The advantage of such a base station is that the beams are created flexibly according to current requirements.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to determine or configure a transmission group based on channel conditions between at least two UEs in the transmission group and/or based on channel conditions from the base station to at least one UE in the transmission group.

An advantage of such a base station is that transmission groups can be optimally configured based on sidelink channel conditions and uplink channel conditions.

From an application point of view, determining includes the base station receiving all or part of the information about the transmission group from another entity. Such an entity may be a core network device or another base station or UE. Such an entity may also be an operator independent device.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to configure transmission groups based on the capabilities of at least two UEs to communicate with each other, in particular based on reliability, throughput, path loss, fading and/or channel state information (CSI).

For example, UEs may form the group if the communication quality is greater than a certain threshold. The advantage of this implementation form is that the transmission group can ensure sufficient communication capability between the UEs of the group.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to reconfigure the transmission group by dividing the transmission group into two or more subgroups, or combining the transmission group with at least one other transmission group or with at least one other UE merged.

The advantages of such a base station are flexible group configuration and temporary changes according to current channel conditions. It also has the advantage of improving availability and reliability for UEs of poorer links eg due to path loss due to congestion or fading.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to, based on changed channel conditions, especially changed channel quality indicator CQI, changed reference signal received power RSRP and/or changed beam index, or based on predicted communication information, re- Configure transport groups.

The advantage of such a base station is that when channel conditions change, (e.g. channel conditions get worse, it allows changing the transmission group, e.g. by removing UEs whose uplink or sidelink channel conditions have changed (e.g. other UEs become farther away).

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to allocate to UEs of a transmission group: non-interfering resources for orthogonal transmission via sidelinks, overlapping resources for non-orthogonal transmissions via sidelinks And/or provide resources for multi-hop transmission via sidelinks.

An advantage of such a base station is that different options for enabling sidelink communication can be implemented. This provides flexibility in how feedback from a group of UEs is provided.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to configure the leader UE of the transmission group for aggregated group feedback and for non-aggregated group feedback.

The advantage of such a base station lies in the flexible feedback configuration. Aggregation group feedback can save transmission resources due to the aggregation of sent information; non-aggregation group feedback can improve the control accuracy of the base station because the base station can make decisions based on more information.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the group feedback includes at least one of the following: channel state information CSI, channel quality indicator CQI, reference signal received power RSRP, reference signal received quality RSRQ, beam index CSI, reference signal resource index CRI, synchronization Signal/Physical Broadcast Channel Block SSB, Index, Precoding Matrix Identifier PMI, Rank Identifier RI and Vehicle-to-Everything V2X specific information including: speed, direction, group size, UE position and/or inter-vehicle distance.

The advantage of such a base station is that the base station can be controlled based on many different parameters, thereby increasing the reliability of the communication.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to determine a block error rate BLER and/or a packet reception rate PRR for a transmission group.

An advantage of such a base station is that the base station can rank different transmission groups based on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as BLER and/or PRR.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to provide a group BLER involving all UEs in a transmission group, which satisfies an overall target BLER and/or a UE-specific target BLER.

The advantage of such a base station is that the status of the transmission group can be checked simply by means of the evaluation group BLER.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to provide a group BLER based on signaling an overall target BLER to the UEs of the transmission group and receiving a report of the target group modulation and/or coding set MCS of the transmission group from the lead UE , or signal the overall target BLER to the UEs of the transmission group, receive a report of the channel quality indication CQI of the UEs of the transmission group from the leader UE, and determine the target group MCS based on the reported CQI.

The advantage of such a base station is that the overall target BLER of the transmission group can be determined flexibly.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the aggregation group feedback is based on a weighted average, normal mean, maximum, minimum and/or median of CQI, RSRP or RSRQ of all UEs of the feedback transmission group.

The advantage of such a base station is that the base station can flexibly change the manner of determining the aggregation group feedback, for example, according to the current channel condition.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the aggregation group feedback is based on feeding back a predefined or configured reference differential group CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ.

The advantage of this base station is that compared with the absolute group CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ, the differential group CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ requires less information bits for transmission, thereby saving transmission resources.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the non-aggregated group feedback is based on feedback: the associated beam index, CRI index and/or SSB index of the reported CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ; or with the beam index, CRI index and/or The SSB indexes the CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ for which there is a predefined or configured relationship.

The advantage of this base station lies in the flexible beam index feedback.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the non-aggregated group feedback is a differential CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ based on the CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of other UEs of the reported transmission group.

An advantage of this implementation is that the base station is able to receive information from multiple UEs of the transmission group. In addition, compared with absolute CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ, differential CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ require fewer information bits for transmission, thereby saving transmission resources.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the non-aggregated group feedback is based on the CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of the UEs of the concatenated transmission group according to the order of CRI index or beam index or according to the order configured through signaling.

The advantage of this implementation form is that the information received by the base station is in a specific order, which facilitates the use of the information by the base station.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is used to coordinate group feedback of transmissions with other base stations, in particular other gNBs, via the Xn interface.

The advantage of this implementation form is that the feedback can be utilized by other base stations, so that other base stations can learn changes in channel conditions or other scenarios early.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to predict resource requirements based on group feedback received from at least one of the other base stations.

The advantage of such a base station is that the base station can schedule resources earlier, thereby improving scheduling.

In an exemplary implementation form of the base station, the base station is configured to coordinate group feedback with other base stations based on CQI reports and/or metric reports from one or more UEs of the transmission group.

The advantage of this implementation form is that it provides the base station with a large amount of information for scheduling its resources, thereby enabling better scheduling.

According to a second aspect, the present invention relates to a user equipment, UE, adapted to receive a signal from a base station, in particular a gNB, wherein said signal includes said UE or other UEs in a transmission group to be configured from said base station Feedback related information reported by at least one of the UEs to the base station, wherein the transmission group includes at least two UEs.

Such UEs may be configured by the base station or gNB to provide group feedback from a group/cluster of UEs to the gNB for beamformed multicast and/or multicast transmissions. A group can be defined as two or more UEs sending the same information. An advantage of such a UE is that it can reduce feedback overhead, for example, in uplink (UL) by utilizing sidelinks within the group. Another advantage is flexibility in how to provide feedback from a group of UEs. A base station or gNB helps to improve the availability and reliability of UEs on poor links such as path loss due to congestion or fading.

In an exemplary implementation form of the UE, the signal includes information about the configuration of the lead UE and/or the configuration of the non-leader UE.

The advantage of such a UE is that the leader UE can be flexibly assigned as a leader UE or a non-leader UE.

In an exemplary implementation form of the UE, the signal includes information about sidelink feedback to be sent to the base station for the transmission, wherein the sidelink feedback is sent by a non-leader UE of the transmission group to a leader UE of the transmission group.

An advantage of such a UE is that the signaling of the uplink channel can be reduced using sidelink feedback.

In an exemplary implementation form of the UE, the UE is configured to send information about the leading UE of the transmission group to the base station.

The advantage of this kind of UE is that other UEs other than the leader UE can be used to send the information about the leader UE to the base station. This can relieve the signaling task of the lead UE.

In an exemplary implementation form of the UE, the information about the feedback from the base station is based on the sidelink channel conditions between the UEs of the transmission group and on the uplink channel conditions from the UEs of the transmission group to the base station.

The advantage of this implementation is that availability and reliability can be improved, especially for UEs with poor links caused by path loss or fading. For example, the UE with the best uplink channel may be selected as the lead UE for reporting feedback of other UEs.

In an exemplary implementation form of the UE, the UE is configured to report feedback to the base station based on aggregated group feedback or based on non-aggregated group feedback.

An advantage of such a UE is that it reports feedback flexibly. Aggregation group feedback can save transmission resources by aggregating sent information; non-aggregation group feedback can improve the control accuracy of the base station because the base station can make decisions based on more information.

In an exemplary implementation form of the UE, the feedback includes CQI reports and/or metric reports from the UE with the base station or with other base stations.

The advantage of this implementation is that the UE can provide feedback to other base stations. Therefore, the base station can be informed of changes in channel conditions or other scenarios early and initiate a necessary handover to another base station.

According to a third aspect, the present invention relates to a method for group-based feedback transmission, the method comprising: configuring a transmission group comprising at least two user equipments UE; and sending a signal to at least one UE in said transmission group, Wherein, the signal includes information about feedback to be received from at least one UE in the transmission group, wherein the feedback includes information about UEs in the transmission group.

This approach can reduce eg uplink (UL) feedback overhead by utilizing sidelinks within the group. Another advantage is flexibility in how to provide feedback from a group of UEs. Improvement of availability and reliability of UEs on poor links such as path loss caused by congestion or fading can be achieved by this method.

According to a fourth aspect, the present invention relates to a computer program product comprising computer-executable code or computer-executable instructions which, when executed, cause at least one computer to perform a program according to the second aspect. method. Such a computer program product may comprise a non-transitory readable storage medium having stored thereon program code for use by a processor, the program code comprising instructions for performing the methods or computational blocks described below.

Description of drawings

Other embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the following drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram 100 of a scenario 100a of beamforming communication in the current solution (left side of FIG. 1 ) and a scenario 100b of beamforming communication in a new solution according to the present disclosure (right side of FIG. 1 ).

FIG. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario 200 in which group members of transmission groups 210, 220, and 230 report feedback to the leader UE of the transmission group according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario 300 for selecting a leader or reporting UE according to the present disclosure;

Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of scenario a) 401 for providing aggregated CQI feedback and scenario b) 402 for providing non-aggregated CQI feedback according to the present disclosure.

Fig. 5 shows a schematic diagram of scenario a) for providing aggregated beam index feedback 501 and scenario b) for providing non-aggregated beam index feedback 502 according to the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario 600 for providing V2X specific information to the base station 101 through a reporting UE or a leading UE according to the present disclosure;

Fig. 7 shows a schematic diagram of a coordination scenario 700 across gNBs or base stations 101, 102, 103 according to the present disclosure.

Fig. 8 shows a schematic diagram of base station 101 configuring group-based feedback for a group of UEs according to the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 shows a schematic diagram of a transmission method 900 for group-based feedback according to the present disclosure.

Detailed ways

In the following detailed description, reference numerals are incorporated into the drawings that are a part of the drawings, and in which are shown by way of illustrations specific aspects in which the disclosure may be practiced. It is to be understood that other aspects may be utilized and structural or logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the following detailed description should not be taken as limiting, and the scope of the present disclosure is defined by the appended claims.

It should be understood that interpretations made in connection with a described method may also be true for a corresponding device or system configured to perform the method, and vice versa. For example, if specific method steps are described, a corresponding device may include means for performing the described method steps, even if the means are not explicitly described or shown in the figures. Furthermore, it should be understood that the features of the various exemplary aspects described herein may be combined with each other unless specifically stated otherwise.

The method, device and system described herein can be implemented in wireless communication networks based on 5G NR (New Air Interface) mobile communication standards and higher versions. The methods, devices and systems described herein may also be implemented in wireless communication networks based on mobile communication standards such as LTE, especially 3G, 4G and 4.5G. The methods, devices and systems described herein may also be implemented in wireless communication networks, especially in communication networks like the WiFi communication standard according to IEEE 802.11. The described devices may include integrated circuits and/or passive components, and may be fabricated according to various technologies. For example, circuits may be designed as logic integrated circuits, analog integrated circuits, mixed-signal integrated circuits, optical circuits, memory circuits, and/or integrated passive devices.

Devices described herein may be configured to transmit and/or receive radio signals. A radio signal may be or may include a radio frequency signal transmitted by a radio transmitting device (or radio transmitter or sender).

The devices and systems described herein may include a processor or processing device, memory, and transceivers, ie, transmitters and/or receivers. In the following description, the term "processor" or "processing device" refers to any device that can be used to process a specific task (or block or step). A processor or processing device may be a single processor or a multi-core processor, or may comprise a group of processors, or may comprise means for processing. A processor or processing device may process software or firmware or applications or the like.

Hereinafter, a base station and user equipment are described. Examples of base stations may include access nodes, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), gNBs, NodeBs, master eNBs (MeNBs), secondary eNBs (SeNBs), remote radio heads, and access points.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram 100 of a scenario 100a of beamforming communication in the current solution (left side of FIG. 1 ) and a scenario 100b of beamforming communication in a new solution according to the present disclosure (right side of FIG. 1 ). In scenario 100a, according to the current solution, multiple UEs send feedback to the base station respectively through separate physical channels. In scheme 100b, according to the new solution, multiple UEs (which may be the same UEs as in scheme 100a) send sidelink feedback to the lead UE, which sends group feedback over a single physical channel to the base station.

In the following, the scenario 100b of beamforming communication according to the new solution of the present disclosure will be described in more detail. Note that scenario 100b can also be applied to non-beamforming communications.

In this scenario 100b, a group of vehicles is driving on a street, each vehicle being equipped with a corresponding user equipment 110, 120, 130, 140, 150. In this scenario 100b, one of the cars, e.g. the car of UE 130, is the group leader, also known as the leader UE, which receives sidelink feedback information 112, 122, 142, 152. The lead UE 130 provides a group feedback 133 via the transmit beam 104 , which includes information about the individual feedback 112 , 122 , 142 , 152 of the other UEs to the base station 101 .

The base station 101 may be a gNodeB, configured or adapted to configure a transmission group including at least two user equipment UEs, for example, a transmission group composed of UEs 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 as shown in FIG. 1 . The base station 101 is also configured to send a signal to at least one UE in the transmission group, for example, to the lead UE 130. The signal includes information about feedback 133 to be received from at least one UE in the transmission group, for example from the lead UE 130. Feedback 133 includes information about UEs in the transmission group.

A user equipment UE, such as the lead UE 130 in the example of FIG. 1 , is configured to receive signals from the base station 101. In the example of Figure 1, the lead UE 130 receives the signal from the BS 101, but any other UE 110, 120, 140, 150 may also receive the signal. The signal comprises information about feedback 133 to be reported to the base station 101 from the UE 130 or at least one of the other UEs 110, 120, 140, 150 in the transmission group configured by the base station 101. A transmission group includes at least two UEs.

Scenario 100b illustrates the configuration method: how UEs 110, 120, 130, 140 and 150 communicate with each other to exchange feedback information 112, 122, 142, 152 and 133, and how UE groups are formed. The disclosed group configuration scheme involves the following:

□ Explicit group-based feedback configuration via gNB

What feedback to provide (e.g. CQI, RSRP, RSRQ, beam index (equivalent resource index, e.g. CSIRS resource index, SS/PBCH block index), BLER, PRR, mobility, block SR, CSI including sidelink periodicity of feedback):

● includes a mechanism to determine the group feedback CQI/beam index;

● gNB notifies authorized resources;

■ In what form the feedback is implemented (eg aggregated/non-aggregated).

□ Reserve or request sidelink resources for group leader feedback.

□gNB feedback/group configuration:

■ Option 1: Send feedback/group configuration to the lead (aka reporting) UE, then relay to other UEs;

■ Option 2: Send feedback/group configuration directly to each UE (unicast or broadcast, assuming the BS knows the group in advance).

The following key concepts are disclosed below:

A. A method of selecting reporting UEs and configuring groups of UEs to provide feedback for multicast/groupcast transmissions.

B. A method for providing feedback (e.g., CQI, RSRP, RSRQ, and beam index, whether aggregated or not) for group beamforming by one UE (selected/reporting UE, i.e., group leader), and aggregation across UEs method of feedback.

C. A method for inter-gNB coordination in case of inter-cell operation.

An exemplary method of configuring a group of UEs according to Key Concept A to provide feedback for multicast/multicast transmissions is described below with reference to FIG. 2 . An exemplary method of selecting reporting UEs according to key concept A is described below with reference to FIG. 3 . Exemplary methods of providing feedback and aggregated feedback across UEs according to key concept B are described below with reference to FIGS. 4 , 5 and 6 . An exemplary method for coordination between gNBs according to key concept C is described below with reference to FIG. 7 .

Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario 200 for group members of a transmission group 210, 220, 230 to report feedback to a leading UE of the transmission group according to the present disclosure.

In order for multicast transmission to take place in the downlink, the gNB 101 needs to know which UEs/vehicles are part of the group. In this case, a group is defined as at least two UEs wishing to receive the same data. This transmission group consists of UEs that are geographically close to each other, which enables group feedback and support over a common multicast beam. A transmission group can be a subset of the entire multicast service group that can be extended to a wide area. In Fig. 2, there are three transmission groups, the first group 210 includes UE 212, 213, 214 and 215, has the leader UE 213; the second group 220 includes UE 222, 223, 224, 225 and 226, has the leader UE 226 the third group 230 includes UEs 231, 232, 233 and 234, with the leader UE 234. The base station 101, ie the gNB, configures the group with the help of information provided by the group if necessary. Specifically, the gNB 101 decides to group UEs for reporting purposes based on one of the following: channel conditions between UEs and from the gNB 101 to the UEs. For example, gNB 101 may configure groups according to their ability to send data to the group meeting requirements (eg, reliability, throughput). It depends on path loss and fading. At the same time, spatial CSI will also affect the grouping decision. Efficient beamforming requires that the UE's spatial channel identities are correlated (ie, similar beam indices). Groups can be (re)configured based on the following predictive communication information. The gNB 101 may update groups by splitting or merging groups when reporting groups change (e.g. in case of a fleet) or before a vehicle enters or leaves a tunnel (due to limited/partial coverage).

Based on any of the above conditions, gNB 101 can dynamically reconfigure the group. For example, gNB 101 may reconfigure groups due to significant changes in CQI/RSRP/beam index.

In addition to group formation and selection of a leader UE, a method for group members to report required information to the leader UE is also disclosed. The method may depend on the size of the group, channel conditions and available resources. The following options depicted in Figure 2 are disclosed:

Option 1 (shown for the first group 210): Orthogonal resources 211 via sidelinks. Vehicles (i.e. UE 212, 214,

215) Non-interference resources allocated for reporting information to the leader UE 213.

Option 2 (shown for the second group 220): Non-orthogonal transmission 221 via sidelinks: In this case, one can use

Techniques such as superposition coding are used to transmit information on overlapping resources.

Option 3 (shown for third group 230): Multiple hops, eg in case of high attenuation on the member-leader link.

FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario 300 for selecting a leader or reporting UE according to the present disclosure.

In the example of FIG. 3 there are three transmission groups, the first group 310 includes UEs 212, 213, 214 and 215, with a leader UE 213; the second group 320 includes UEs 231, 232 and 233, whose leader UE has not yet been determined; the third group 330 includes UEs 222, 223, 224, 225 and 226, with UE 226 as leader.

Efficient selection of reporting UEs (or leading UEs) is crucial for reliable group feedback. Reporting UE selection may depend on the presence/quality of uplink connections. Note that some vehicles in the target group may be in deep fade and have poor uplink connections. This will affect the selection of the reporting UE. The following options depicted in Figure 3 exist for Select Reporting/Leader UE:

Option 1 (shown for the first group 310): Decision by the gNB 101 (e.g. based on channel conditions to the UEs 212, 213, 214, 215) 215 Send signaling.

Option 2 (shown for the second group 320 ): Coordination among vehicles (ie UEs of the vehicles): Vehicles 231 , 232 , 233 agree on reporting/leading UEs and issue decision notifications to gNB 101 .

Option 3 (shown for third group 330): Reuse existing concepts from higher layer or contextual information. An example of such information is the designation of the first car 226 as the leader in the case of a fleet use case.

Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of scenario a) 401 for providing aggregated CQI feedback and scenario b) 402 for providing non-aggregated CQI feedback according to the present disclosure. The group of vehicles with UEs 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 may correspond to the group with UEs 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 described above with reference to FIG. 1 , in particular scenario 100b.

In scenario a) 401, the aggregated CQI feedback 404 is provided by the lead UE 130, which receives sidelink feedback from the other UEs 110, 120, 140, 150 of the transmission group. In this example, UE 110 provides information CQI=4 to lead UE 130 via sidelink feedback 410; UE 120 provides information CQI=3 to leader UE 130 via sidelink feedback 411; UE 140 provides information CQI=3 to leader UE 130 via sidelink feedback 410; The channel feedback 412 provides the information CQI=4 to the leader UE 130; the UE 150 provides the information CQI=6 to the leader UE 130 via the sidelink feedback 413. Based on a predetermined policy 403, for example, minimizing the CQI value, the leading UE 130 determines the aggregated CQI 404 as CQI=3, and reports it to the BS 101 via the group feedback channel. Based on this aggregated CQI, base station 101 looks up in 4-bit CQI table 408 to receive modulation (e.g., quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK)) and/or coding rate (e.g., 193 for CQI=3) ). Base station 101 sends downlink signal 405 including modulation and/or coding rate to lead UE 130.

In scenario b) 402, non-aggregated CQI feedback 406 is provided by the lead UE 130, which receives sidelink feedback from the other UEs 110, 120, 140, 150 of the transmission group. In this example, UEs 110, 120, 140, 150 provide the same CQI values as in scenario a) 401 described above. The lead UE 130 reports the non-aggregated CQI 406 to the BS 101 via the group feedback channel, which includes the values of the individual CQIs, i.e. CQI={4,3,4,6}. Based on this non-aggregated CQI, base station 101 looks up in 4-bit CQI table 408 to receive modulation (e.g., QPSK) and/or coding rate (e.g., 308 for CQI=4, 193 for CQI=3, etc.) . Base station 101 sends downlink signal 407 including modulation and/or coding rate to lead UE 130.

There may be other requirements to determine the CQI/MCS/beam index based on a predetermined policy. In particular, there may be application requirements from the application/use case for a certain level of reliability, throughput, etc. For example, in the case of using retransmission to ensure reliability, the number of subsequent hybrid automatic repeat request (hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ) retransmission rounds can be adjusted based on the target BLER (block error rate). Similarly, in the case of certain applications, the connection to the group leader may require a lower error rate, so a variable BLER can be used for the vehicles (e.g., a lower target BLER for the leader and a higher one for the other vehicles).

Another relevant aspect is channel conditions (eg interference or strong fading), which can affect the reliability of group communication and thus the type of feedback required (eg more robust in case of high interference).

Some example use cases for group feedback (aggregated or not) are:

i) Feedback (e.g. UL channel) is better for leaders and worse for group members, but they are able to receive DL signals (at a lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR));

ii) The reverse direction (eg UL) may only have SPS, but the forward direction (eg DL) is a multicast transmission.

Feedback information can include the following:

-- Channel State Information (CSI), e.g., Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) or RSRP or RSRQ, Beam Index, CSIRS Resource Index (CRI), SS/PBCH Block Index (SSB Index), PMI, RI, etc.

--V2X specific information, e.g., speed, direction (trajectory) or group size, UE position, inter-vehicle distance, etc.

The main motivation for group BLER computation is that some applications may have the goal of receiving the group's overall BLER value (eg, sending a collaborative awareness or event message to a group of users with a fixed overall BLER goal). Similar to reporting groups, another goal of providing group BLERs is to reduce UL feedback overhead.

BLER and/or packet reception rate (PRR) may be calculated for the entire group. That is, the BLER can be calculated over all group members meeting the target BLER per vehicle. For example, a maximum (overall) BLER may be set to 5% and a maximum BLER per vehicle to 10%.

Two exemplary options for computing the group BLER are disclosed below.

Option 1: The gNB signals the target group BLER. Report UE/vehicle to calculate target group MCS and report to gNB.

Option 2: The gNB signals the target group BLER. Reporting UE/vehicle collects CQI and reports to gNB (in aggregated or non-aggregated form). The gNB calculates the target group MCS based on the reported CQI.

For CSI, in the case of mode selection and configuration by the serving gNB, two exemplary cases of group-based feedback configuration are disclosed, namely aggregation (case 1) and non-aggregation (case 2), and CQI will be used as CSI in the following Example to illustrate:

Case 1: Aggregated form (ie mean (weighted or normal), max, min, median) of all group UEs. For example, by feeding back the minimum CQI, the gNB can adapt the MCS to the worst link, thus ensuring that the multicast signal can be correctly received by all UEs in the group. In this case, the achievable data rate is limited by the worst UE. Better throughput is typically achieved by using weighted aggregation, which feeds back the CQI.

For case 1, i.e. aggregated/non-concatenated CSI feedback, the UE can use the {i.e., average (weighted or normal), maximum, minimum, median} CQI/RSRP/RSRQ it receives from other UEs to Perform group CQI reporting. Alternatively, the group CQI/RSRP/RSRQ may be differential CQI/RSRP/RSRQ for CSI reporting, where the reference CQI/RSRP/RSRQ may be predefined or configured. For example, a 3-bit differential CQI value for a group CQI offset level. For example, the following relation holds: Group CQI offset level = CQI index of selected (leader) UE - CQI index of group CQI. Table 1 shows an exemplary mapping from 3-bit inter-UE differential CQI values to offset levels.

Differential CQI value offset level 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 ≥3 4 ≤-4 5 -3 6 -2 7 -1

Table 1: Example of 3-bit differential CQI value mapping

Case 2: Non-aggregated concatenated CQI for all group UE members. For non-aggregated CQI, gNB can decide to be a single

single or multiple beams (depending on the beam feedback configuration). Differential CQI may also be used.

Some additional details of cascaded/non-aggregated CSI feedback are described below.

The reporting UE can report: 1) the beam index/CRI/SSB index associated with the reported CQI/RSRP/RSRQ, or 2) the presence of Predefined/configured relationships.

The reporting UE can report the CQI/RSRP/RSRQ of itself and other UEs. The reporting UE may use differential CQI/RSRP/RSRQ based reporting for CQI/RSRP/RSRQ of other UEs, where the reference CQI/RSRP/RSRQ may be pre-defined or configured. The reporting UE can concatenate its received CQI/RSRP according to the CRI/beam index order or the order configured through signaling. More than one RSRP and beam index of a UE can be supported through configuration. For example, each UE sends {CQI, RSRP1, CRI/SSB index/beam 1} {RSRP2, CRI/SSB index/beam 2}, {RSRP3, CRQ/SSB index/beam 3} to the leader UE.

The reporting UE may report the CQI and associated beam index. The beam index may be a differential beam index relative to the lead UE's beam index (described below).

A 3-bit inter-UE differential CQI value for the offset class can be specified according to the following example: Offset class = CQI index of the selected (leader) UE - CQI index of other UEs. An example of mapping from 3-bit inter-UE differential CQI values to offset levels is shown in Table 2.

Differential CQI value between UEs offset level 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 ≥3 4 ≤-4 5 -3 6 -2 7 -1

Table 2: Example of differential CQI value mapping between UEs

Fig. 5 shows a schematic diagram of scenario a) for providing aggregated beam index feedback 501 and scenario b) for providing non-aggregated beam index feedback 502 according to the present disclosure.

In scenario a) 501, aggregated beam index feedback 516 is provided by the lead UE 130, which receives sidelink feedback from the other UEs 110, 120, 140, 150 of the transmission group. In this example, the BS 101 is connected to the UEs 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 via three beams 513, 514, 515. UE 110 provides beam index BI=5 to lead UE 130 via sidelink feedback 511, and UE 150 provides beam index BI=7 to lead UE 130 via sidelink feedback 512. Based on the provided beam indices BI=5 and BI=7, the lead UE 130 determines the aggregated beam index as BI=6 and reports it to the BS 101 as group feedback 516.

In scenario b) 502, non-aggregated beam index feedback 526 is provided by the lead UE 130, which receives sidelink feedback from the other UEs 110, 120, 140, 150 of the transmission group. In this example, the BS 101 is connected to respective UEs 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 via five beams 521, 522, 523, 524, 525. The first beam 521 to UE 110 provides information on beam index BI=3; the second beam 521 to UE 120 provides information on beam index BI=4; the third beam 523 to UE 130 provides information on beam index BI=5 The fourth beam 524 to UE 140 provides relevant information of beam index BI=6; the fifth beam 525 to UE 115 provides relevant information of beam index BI=7. The lead UE 130 reports the aggregated beam index 526 to the BS 101. For example, the lead UE 130 uses the differential form with beam index BI=5 as reference, and the differential beam offset values {-1, -2, +1} for the other UEs 110, 120, 140, 150.

Feedback of the Transmit-Receive Point (TRP) beam index (resource/CRI/SSB index) for the group of UEs 110, 120, 130, 140 may be set and configured by the serving gNB 101. A receiver located at the base station 101 or gNB performs sending and receiving signals and may be referred to as a TRP.

As shown in Figure 5, two forms of feedback configurations are disclosed, aggregated and non-aggregated.

An aggregated form (ie, a combination of one or more TRP beam indices) may be configured as one beam resource, or may be a "beam resource set" common to all UEs. The serving gNB/TRP may weight these beams at the TRP for transmission using each beam's corresponding signal strength CQI (RSRP or RSRQ). In an example use case, (almost) all vehicles are covered by one (or a common set of) TRP/gNB beams, depending on group size, beam width and distance between groups, etc.

Feedback from all UEs is provided to BS 101 in a non-aggregated form. In examples using this configuration, one beam may be too narrow or the fleet may be too long. All beam indices for each UE in the group may be fed back separately (resulting in high overhead). The leader's beam index and other vehicles' differential beam indices (ie +/- 1, 2) can be fed back (resulting in reduced feedback overhead, only 1 or 2 bits are required for differential beams).

Fig. 6 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario 600 for providing V2X specific information to the base station 101 through a reporting UE or a leading UE according to the present disclosure.

In Fig. 6, two groups 620, 610 are shown. Group A 620 includes vehicles, namely UEs 621, 622, 623, 624, 625, where UE 621 is the lead UE. All vehicles in group A travel in the same direction, i.e. left to right. Group B 610 includes vehicles, namely UEs 611, 612, 613, 614, where the vehicle with UE 611 is the lead UE. The vehicles in group B 610 travel in different directions, with vehicles 611, 614 traveling from left to right and vehicles 612, 613 traveling from right to left.

The following types of feedback are disclosed: velocity, direction (trajectory) or size of the group, UE position, inter-vehicle distance, etc., also represented as contextual information. Its purpose is to help estimate the rate of change of the channel (for example, a platoon of vehicles moving in both directions) and the required feedback rate. This can also be used for multicast packets.

Fig. 7 shows a schematic diagram of a coordination scenario 700 across gNBs or base stations 101, 102, 103 according to the present disclosure. A first group of vehicles with corresponding UEs 701, 702, 703, 704, 705, 706 approaches or is within range of the base station 101, while a second group of vehicles with corresponding UEs 707, 708, 709, 710, 711, 712 approaches or Within range of base station 103 (and base station 102).

Coordination between gNBs 101, 102, 103 is necessary in any situation when a group is switched between different gNBs 101, 102, 103 (as shown in Figure 7) and group communication needs to be maintained. For high frequency transmissions, this will be especially important since one group is likely to be covered by multiple gNBs (eg, a second group is covered by BS 102 and BS 103 as shown in Fig. 7). This coordination can be done via the Xn interface 720, 721, where the gNB 101, 102, 103 can predict the resource requirements in the next cell based on the use case in the current cell. Communication for coordination can be done as follows:

The reporting UE (or leading UE) 701 provides feedback to the serving gNB 101. Some group members may report CQI/other metrics of multiple gNBs (e.g. UE 705, 706 may report to BS 101 and BS 102). The reporting UE 701 may send per-gNB feedback (eg, in aggregated form as described above). The gNBs 101, 102 coordinate with each other to serve the group. For example, gNB 101 may coordinate with gNB 102 via Xn interface 720 to hand over the first group to gNB 102.

Fig. 8 shows a schematic diagram of base station 101 configuring group-based feedback for a group of UEs according to the present disclosure. Figure 8 describes a general scenario applicable to the scenarios described above in Figures 1 to 7. The base station 101 may correspond to the base stations described above in FIG. 1 to FIG. 7 .

A base station 101, in particular a gNodeB, configures a transmission group 801 comprising at least two user equipments UE 810, 820. The base station transmits a signal 802 to at least one of the UEs 810, 820 in the transmission group 801. The signal 802 includes information about feedback 803 to be received from at least one of the UEs 810, 820 in the transmission group 801. The feedback 803 includes information about the UEs 810, 820 in the transmission group 801, eg as described above with respect to Figures 1-7.

The base station's configuration of the UE may include a command message from the base station to the UE, the command message including configuration commands for the UE. It may be based on the knowledge of the base station and/or feedback messages from the UE and/or other UEs.

The base station 101 may configure the transmission group 801 based on sidelink feedback 804 from a non-leader UE 810 of the transmission group 801 to a leader UE 820 of the transmission group 801 for beamformed or non-beamformed transmissions. The base station 101 may configure the transmission group 801 based on information provided by at least one UE in the transmission group 801 .

The base station 101 may select the leader UE 820 in the transmission group 801 and/or receive information about the leader UE 820 from at least one UE in the transmission group 801, for example, as described above with respect to FIG. The quality selection of the uplink connection to the base station 101 leads the UE 820. The base station 101 may select the leader UE 820 based on at least one of the following options: a decision by the base station 101, especially a decision based on channel conditions to the UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801; a cooperative agreement of the UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801 ; reuse of contextual information and/or existing principles, especially the UE 226 of the first vehicle is the principle of the fleet use case leading UE 820, for example as described above with respect to FIG. 2 .

The base station 101 may form a common beam 104 covering the UEs 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 of the transmission group 801 and/or separate beams for at least two UEs 810, 820 in the transmission group 801.

The base station 101 may configure the transmission group 801 based on channel conditions between at least two UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801 and/or based on channel conditions from the base station 101 to at least one UE of the transmission group 801.

The base station 101 may configure the transmission group 801 based on the capabilities of at least two UEs 810, 820 to communicate with each other, in particular based on reliability, throughput, path loss, fading and/or channel state information, CSI.

The base station 101 may reconfigure the transmission group 801 by dividing the transmission group 801 into two or more subgroups, or combining the transmission group 801 with at least one other transmission group or with at least one other UE.

The base station 101 may reconfigure the transmission group 801 based on changed channel conditions, especially changed channel quality indicator CQI, changed reference signal received power, RSRP and/or changed beam index, or based on predicted communication information.

The base station 101 may allocate to the UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801: non-interfering resources 211 for orthogonal transmission 210 via sidelinks (804), overlapping resources 221 for non-orthogonal transmissions 220 via sidelinks 804, and and/or provide resources for multi-hop transmission 230 via sidelink 804 , eg, as described above with respect to FIG. 2 .

The base station 101 may configure the leader UE 820 of the transmission group 801 for aggregated group feedback 401, 501 or for non-aggregated group feedback 402, 502, e.g. as described above with respect to FIGS. 4 and 5 .

Group feedback may include at least one of the following: channel state information CSI, channel quality indicator CQI, reference signal received power RSRP, reference signal received quality RSRQ, beam index, CSI reference signal resource index CRI, synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel block SSB, Index, Precoding Matrix Indicator PMI, Rank Indicator RI and V2X specific information including: speed, direction, group size, UE position and/or inter-vehicle distance.

The base station 101 may determine a block error rate BLER and/or a packet reception rate PRR for the transmission group 801 . The base station 101 may provide a group BLER involving all UEs 810, 820 in the transmission group 801, which satisfies an overall target BLER and/or a UE-specific target BLER.

The base station 101 may provide the group BLER based on signaling an overall target BLER to the UEs 810, 820 in the transmission group 801 and receiving a report from the leader UE 820 of the target group modulation and/or coding set MCS for the transmission group. Alternatively, the base station 101 may receive a report of the channel quality indication CQI of the UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801 from the leader UE 820 based on signaling the overall target BLER to the UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801, and determine the target based on the reported CQI Group MCS to provide BLER.

The aggregate group feedback may be based on a weighted average, normal mean, maximum, minimum and/or median of the CQI, RSRP or RSRQ of all UEs 810, 820 of the transmitted group 801 being fed back.

Aggregated group feedback may be based on fed back differential group CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ based on predefined or configured references.

Non-aggregated group feedback may be based on: the associated beam index, CRI index and/or SSB index of the reported CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ; or there is a predefined or CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of the configuration relationship.

The non-aggregated group feedback may be based on the reported differential CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of the CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of other UEs of the transmission group. Non-aggregated group feedback may be based on CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of UEs 810, 820 of concatenated transmission group 801 according to CRI index or beam index order or according to signaling configured order.

The base station 101 may coordinate group feedback of beamformed or non-beamformed transmissions with other base stations 102, 103, especially with other gNBs via the Xn interface 720, 721, eg as described above with respect to Fig. 7 . The base station 101 may predict resource requirements based on group feedback received from at least one of the other base stations 102,103. The base station 101 may coordinate group feedback with other base stations 102, 103 based on CQI reports and/or metric reports from one or more UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801, e.g., as described above with respect to FIG. 7 .

A user equipment 820 receives a signal 802 from a base station, eg a gNB. The signal 802 includes information about feedback 803 to be reported to the base station 101 from at least one of the UE 820 or other UEs 810 in the transmission group 801 configured by the base station 101. The transmission group 801 includes at least two UEs 810 and 820 as exemplarily shown in FIG. 8 .

Signal 802 may include information about the configuration of the lead UE 820 and/or the configuration of the non-leader UE 810. The signal 802 may include information about sidelink feedback 804 to be sent to the base station 101 for beamformed or non-beamformed transmissions, where the sidelink feedback 804 is sent to the transmission by a non-leader UE 810 of the transmission group 801 Group 801 is headed by UE 820 .

The UE 820 may send information about the leader UE 820 of the transmission group 801 to the base station 101.

Information about the feedback 803 from the base station 101 may be based on sidelink 804 channel conditions between the UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801, and on uplink channel conditions between the UEs 810, 820 of the transmission group 801 to the base station 101.

The UE 820 may report feedback 803 to the base station 101 based on aggregated group feedback 401, 501 or based on non-aggregated group feedback 402, 502 (e.g. as described above with respect to Figures 4 and 5).

This feedback may include CQI reports and/or metric reports from the UE 820 with the base station 101 or with other base stations 102, 103 (eg, as described above with respect to FIG. 7 ).

FIG. 9 shows a schematic diagram illustrating a method 900 for transmission of group-based feedback according to the present disclosure.

The method 900 includes: 901. Configuring a transmission group including at least two user equipments, UE 810, 820 (for example, as shown in FIG. 8 ); and 902, sending a signal to at least one UE in the transmission group, wherein the signal including information about feedback to be received from at least one UE in the transmission group, wherein the feedback includes information about UEs in the transmission group, eg, as described above with respect to FIGS. 1 to 8 .

Another method of configuring a UE may include receiving a signal 802 from a base station, wherein the signal 802 includes feedback 803 to be reported to the base station 101 from at least one of the UE 820 or other UEs 810 in a transmission group 801 configured by the base station , wherein the transmission group 801 includes at least two UEs 810, 820, for example, as described above with respect to FIGS. 1 to 8 .

The present disclosure also supports a computer program product comprising computer-executable code or computer-executable instructions which, when executed, cause at least one computer to perform the performing and Computational steps, especially steps of the methods described above. Such a computer program product may include a non-transitory readable storage medium having stored thereon program code for use by a computer. The program code can carry out the processing and calculation steps described herein, in particular the methods described above.

Although specific features or aspects of one of several implementations are disclosed in this disclosure, for any given or particular application, such features or aspects may be combined with one or more other features of other implementations. or a combination of aspects. Furthermore, where the terms "comprise", "have", "exist" or other variants are used in the detailed description or claims, such terms are intended to be encompassed in a manner similar to the term "comprising". Likewise, the terms "exemplary", "for example" and "such as" are used as examples only, not the best or optimum. The terms "coupled" and "connected" and their derivatives. It should be understood that these terms may be used to indicate that two elements co-operate or interact with each other whether they are in direct physical or electrical contact, or they are not in direct contact with each other.

Although certain aspects have been illustrated and described herein, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various alternative and/or equivalent implementations may be substituted for the certain aspects shown and described without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. . This application is intended to cover any alternatives or variations of the specific aspects discussed herein.

Although elements in the following claims are recited in a specific order with a corresponding label, unless recitation in the claims implies a specific order for implementing some or all of these elements, these elements are not intended to be limited to the following: This particular order is achieved.

From the above teaching, many changes, substitutions and alterations will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Of course, those skilled in the art will readily recognize that the invention has applications beyond what is described herein. Although the invention has been described with reference to one or more particular embodiments, numerous changes can be made therein by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention. It is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein.

Claims (33)

1. A group-based feedback method, comprising:

-determining or configuring a transmission group (801) comprising at least two user equipments, UEs (810, 820); and

-transmitting a signal (802) to at least one UE (810, 820) in the transmission group, wherein the signal (802) comprises information about feedback (803) to be received from at least one UE (810, 820) in the transmission group (801);

Wherein the feedback (803) comprises information about UEs (810, 820) in the transmission group (801), and the feedback (803) is sent by a leading UE (820) in the transmission group to a base station (101);

wherein the method further comprises: configuring the leading UE (820) of the transmission group (801) for aggregated group feedback (401, 501) or for non-aggregated group feedback (402, 502);

wherein the aggregate group feedback is based on at least one of:

-feeding back channel quality indicators, CQIs, reference signal received powers, RSRP, or weighted averages, normal averages, maxima, minima and/or median of reference signal received quality, RSRQ, of all UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801); and

differential group CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ based on feedback predefined or configured references;

the non-polymeric group feedback is based on at least one of:

feeding back the associated beam index, reference signal resource index CRI and/or synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel block SSB index of the reported CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ;

feeding back CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ having a predefined or configured relationship with the beam index, CRI and/or SSB index;

differential CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of reported CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of other UEs of the transmission group (801); and

The CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of the UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801) are concatenated according to CRI or beam index order or according to an order of signaling configuration.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the configuration comprises a transmission group (801) of at least two user equipments, UEs (810, 820), comprising:

the transmission group (801) is configured for side-link feedback transmitted from a non-leading UE (810) of the transmission group (801) to a leading UE (820) of the transmission group (801).

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the configuration comprises a transmission group (801) of at least two user equipments, UEs (810, 820), comprising: the transmission group (801) is configured based on information provided by at least one UE in the transmission group (801).

4. The method according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: -selecting the leading UE (820) of the transmission group (801) and/or-receiving information about the leading UE (820) from at least one UE in the transmission group (801).

5. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising: -selecting the leading UE (820) based on the quality of the uplink connection of the leading UE (820) to the base station (101).

6. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising: the leading UE (820) is selected based on at least one of the following options:

decision making by the base station;

-a cooperation protocol of UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801);

context information and/or reuse of existing principles.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the decision of the base station comprises:

a decision based on channel conditions to UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801); and

the existing principles include: the UE (226) of the first vehicle is the principle of the fleet use case of the lead UE.

8. The method according to claim 1 or 2: characterized by further comprising: forming a common beam covering the UEs (110, 120, 130, 140, 150) of the transmission group (801) and/or forming separate beams for at least two UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801).

9. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the configuration comprises a transmission group (801) of at least two user equipments, UEs (810, 820), comprising: -configuring the transmission group (801) based on channel conditions between at least two UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801) and/or based on channel conditions of the base station (101) to at least one UE of the transmission group (801).

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the configuration comprises a transmission group (801) of at least two user equipments, UEs (810, 820), comprising: the transmission group (801) is configured based on the capability of at least two UEs (810, 820) to communicate with each other.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the capability of the at least two UEs (810, 820) to communicate with each other comprising: reliability, throughput, path loss, fading and/or channel state information CSI between the at least two UEs (810, 820).

12. The method according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: reconfiguring the transport group (801) by:

dividing the transmission group (801) into two or more subgroups; or alternatively

The transmission group (801) is combined with at least one other transmission group or with at least one other UE.

13. The method as recited in claim 9, further comprising: the transmission group is reconfigured based on the changed channel conditions (801).

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the changed channel condition comprises: changed CQI, changed RSRP, and/or changed beam index, or based on predicted communication information.

15. The method according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: -assigning to UEs (810, 820) of said transmission group (801):

non-interfering resources (211) of an orthogonal transmission (210) via a side uplink (804);

overlapping resources for non-orthogonal transmission (220) via a side uplink (804); and/or

Resources for multi-hop transmission (230) are provided via a side-uplink (804).

16. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the set of feedback comprises at least one of:

channel state information CSI, CQI, RSRP, RSRQ, beam index, CRI, SSB, index, precoding matrix identifier PMI, rank identifier RI, and all V2X specific information of the vehicle, the V2X specific information including: speed, direction, group size, UE location and/or inter-vehicle distance.

17. The method according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: -determining a block error rate BLER and/or a packet reception rate PRR of said transmission group (801).

18. The method as recited in claim 17, further comprising: a group BLER is provided that relates to all UEs (810, 820) in the transmission group (801) that meets an overall target BLER and/or a UE-specific target BLER.

19. The method according to claim 18, for providing said set of BLERs based on:

signaling the overall target BLER to UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801) and receiving a report of a target group modulation and/or coding set, MCS, of the transmission group (801) from the leading UE (820); or (b)

-signaling the overall target BLER to UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801), -receiving a report of CQI of the UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801) from the leading UE (820), and-determining the target group MCS based on the reported CQI.

20. The method according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: group feedback transmitted with other base stations (102, 103) is coordinated via an Xn interface (720, 721).

21. The method as recited in claim 20, further comprising: the resource requirements are predicted based on group feedback received from at least one of the other base stations (102, 103).

22. The method according to claim 20, wherein said coordinating the group feedback with other base stations (102, 103) transmissions comprises: the group feedback is coordinated with other base stations (102, 103) based on CQI reports and/or metric reports from one or more UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801).

23. A group-based feedback method, comprising:

-receiving a signal (802) from a base station (101), wherein the signal (802) comprises information about feedback (803) to be reported from at least one of a UE (820) or other UE (810) in a transmission group (801) configured by the base station (101) to the base station (101), wherein the transmission group (801) comprises at least two UEs (810, 820), and the feedback (803) is sent by a leading UE (820) in the transmission group to the base station (101);

wherein the leading UE (820) of the transmission group (801) is configured for aggregated group feedback (401, 501) or for non-aggregated group feedback (402, 502);

wherein the aggregate group feedback is based on at least one of:

-feeding back a weighted average, normal average, maximum, minimum and/or median of CQI, RSRP or RSRQ of all UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801); and

differential group CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ based on feedback predefined or configured references;

the non-polymeric group feedback is based on at least one of:

feeding back the associated beam index, CRI, and/or SSB index of the reported CQI, RSRP, and/or RSRQ;

feeding back CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ having a predefined or configured relationship with the beam index, CRI and/or SSB index;

Differential CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of reported CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of other UEs of the transmission group (801); and

the CQI, RSRP and/or RSRQ of the UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801) are concatenated according to CRI or beam index order or according to an order of signaling configuration.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the step of determining the position of the probe is performed,

the signal (802) includes information about a leader UE (820) configuration and/or a non-leader UE (810) configuration.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the step of determining the position of the probe is performed,

the signal (802) comprises information about side-link feedback (804) to be sent to the base station (101) for transmission, the side-link feedback (804) being sent by a non-leading UE (810) of the transmission group (801) to the leading UE (820) of the transmission group (801).

26. The method according to claim 25, wherein:

-transmitting information about the leading UE (820) of the transmission group (801) to the base station (101).

27. The method according to any one of claims 23-26, wherein,

the related information of the feedback (803) from the base station (101) is based on side-uplink (804) channel conditions between UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801) and on uplink channel conditions of UEs (810, 820) of the transmission group (801) to the base station (101).

28. The method according to any of claims 23-26, for reporting the feedback (803) to the base station (101) based on the aggregated group feedback (401, 501) or based on the non-aggregated group feedback (402, 502).

29. A base station, comprising: a processor and a transceiver;

the processor controls the transceiver to receive and dispatch actions;

the processor invokes a program stored in a memory to perform the method according to any one of claims 1-22.

30. A user equipment, UE, (820) comprising: a processor and a transceiver;

the processor controls the transceiver to receive and dispatch actions;

the processor invokes a program stored in a memory to perform the method according to any one of claims 23-28.

31. A communication system, comprising: the base station of claim 29 and the user equipment, UE, (820) of claim 30.

32. A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program, which, when executed by a processor, causes the method of any of claims 1-22 to be performed; or cause the method of any one of claims 23-28 to be performed.

33. A communication device comprising a processor for performing the method of any of claims 1-22; or the processor is configured to perform the method of any one of claims 23-28.

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